Minor league baseball: Squeezed by low pay

Former prospect among lead lawyers in lawsuit challenging of Major League Baseball's position on wage and hour law.

By Brian MacPherson Journal Sports Writer

For Garrett Broshuis, the waterfall of sewage was the last straw.

A right-handed pitcher drafted out of Missouri in 2004, Broshuis had climbed to the Double-A Eastern League in 2006, pitching for the Connecticut Defenders in the San Francisco Giants organization. He’d already begun to feel as though major-league teams exploited and neglected their minor-league players — “It seemed like it was just a meat market, the true commoditization of human beings,” he said — but he’d kept his head down as best he could to that point.

The meager wages afforded to Double-A players prompted Broshuis and a pair of teammates to rent a dilapidated house on the outskirts of Norwich, Conn., where the Defenders played. He slept on an air mattress instead of a bed, pinching pennies as best he could during a five-month season. But after he made a trip to T.F. Green Airport in Warwick early in the season to pick up his fiancée, what was waiting for him at home confirmed everything he already thought about his working conditions.

The ballplayers’ upstairs neighbor had abandoned a clogged toilet, leaving it running long enough that the ceiling collapsed in a river of wastewater. The apartment remained in that condition for more than a month while the players awaited repairs from their absentee landlord, allowing mold to spawn throughout.

“We’re supposed to go out and play professional baseball games when we’re living like that,” Broshuis said.

Broshuis is one of the lead lawyers who filed suit on behalf of 34 plaintiffs in federal court, Northern District of California, a lawsuit that names as defendants Major League Baseball, outgoing commissioner Bud Selig and teams including the Boston Red Sox. The complaint alleges willful and actionable violation of federal and state wage and hour laws under the Fair Labor Standards Act by teams who paid minor-league players less than minimum wage and, at times, not at all.

Former Red Sox farmhand Ryan Khoury, an infielder who played parts of three seasons at Triple-A Pawtucket, is one of the named plaintiffs. He declined an interview request.

In a 78-page response filed in May, Major League Baseball broadly denied the allegations in the complaint.

The rebuttal included an assertion that Major League Baseball and its teams “did not exert the necessary control over the wages, hours and other conditions” of the plaintiffs to be subject to the laws cited in the complaint. Major League Baseball asserted that the case should be dismissed and the players should be compelled by the courts to submit their grievances to arbitration under the terms of their contracts.

(Their contracts hold that “the sole and exclusive forum” for redress through arbitration is the office of the commissioner.)

Major League Baseball also asserted that the plaintiffs’ claims are rendered moot by exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act for “seasonal, amusement or recreational establishments and those employed in a ‘bona fide professional capacity.’ ”

Whether those exemptions apply to Major League Baseball and its member teams the Red Sox included — figures to be the primary point of law in question. Given the number of players involved even within the various statutes of limitations, the damages MLB could face would be extraordinary.

“It seems to me that there is a pretty sound legal argument that these are not exempt professional employees,” said Michael Yelnosky, the dean of the Roger Williams School of Law. “I’m not saying that’s clear in any way. I’m just saying that it seems to me that’s a sound argument. When you think about it, in some ways, they look like a classic group of exploited employees. They’re young. They’re making almost nothing. They’re living on barely subsistence wages. The chance that they’re going to make any more than that is extraordinarily thin. They’re being sort of sold a bill of goods, and most of them don’t make it and in the meantime are putting away absolutely no money to take care of themselves or their families. In that sense, they do look like the classic exploited workers.

“On the other hand, they don’t do the kind of work that most people do, and if they’re just a little bit better at it, they’re being given this opportunity by the leagues — and two years down the road, they might have diamond earrings. I don’t think it’s a clear case at all. I think that they are covered by the statute is sufficiently in doubt that this case needs to be taken pretty seriously by the league.”

Said Broshuis, “There’s no reason that a $9-billion industry that conducts business throughout the year and requires minor-leaguers to perform work throughout the year should be exempt. The law doesn’t envision any exemption applying to this type of situation.”

The contract

Upon being drafted — or upon agreeing to join an organization as a 16-year-old coming out of the Dominican Republic or Venezuela — each player is required to sign a seven-year minor-league contract. With only a handful of exceptions, typically professional players from Cuba or Japan, no player can enter the industry without signing that seven-year contract. Once he signs, the team holds absolute leverage.

The contract allows for annual salary negotiation, but “if the Player and Club do not reach agreement, then the Player’s monthly salary rate for the next championship playing season shall be set by the Club.”

The team may terminate the contract, according to its language, “if player at any time shall … fail in the judgment of Club to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability to qualify or to continue as a professional baseball player as a member of Club’s team.”

Should the dissatisfaction with the contract go the other way, the player cannot seek a new employer unless granted his release by his team. A center fielder who finds himself in an organization loaded with center fielders cannot try his luck in another organization with less depth at that position. Not until seven seasons have passed can a player seek a team whose executives believe more in his skills than the team that first signed him.

“Club shall be entitled to … the right to enjoin Player from playing professional baseball for any other person or organization,” the contract reads.

This contract clause exists because the player signing the contract “has exceptional and unique skill and ability as a baseball player,” rendering his services “a peculiar value which cannot be reasonably or adequately compensated for in damages at law.”

Minimum wage?

It would be difficult to spin the numbers in any way that suggests minor-league baseball players earn minimum wage.

The schedule for the Pawtucket Red Sox for the upcoming season — just one example — extends for 152 days, starting April 9. The team is scheduled to play 144 games in that time. More than half of the weeks on the schedule require the players to work seven days.

Most days, players are at the ballpark for more than eight hours — generally from around 2 p.m. until 11 or later. Major League Baseball’s response to the suit asserts that pregame activities such as batting and fielding practice “are not governed” by the office of the commissioner.

At $2,150 per month for five months, the highest salary level in the minor leagues, Triple-A players earn about $8.29 per hour for 1,296 hours at the ballpark. This is above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 but below the minimum wage of Rhode Island as well as California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and Canadian province British Columbia.

(Between them, those 11 jurisdictions contain 37 minor-league franchises. California contains 12 minor-league teams by itself, including the 10-team California League. The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in northern California, though the venue of the lawsuit was contested by Major League Baseball at a Feb. 13 hearing. A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Broshius and his team to find more class members with ties to California in order to proceed with the suit, though the judge said he was disinclined to move the venue.)

At $1,100 per month, the lowest salary level in the minor leagues, players’ approximate hourly wage works out to $4.24 per hour — far below the federal minimum wage and any state minimum wage.

Those figures do not include the overtime wages the plaintiffs seek for routinely working more than 50 hours in a week. Nor do they take into consideration that wages are only paid for five months of the year. Triple-A players at the highest rung of the major leagues are paid less than $11,000 per year, below the federal poverty level.

Depending on a variety of factors including residency status and other assets, many minor-leaguers could qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — food stamps.

Pending other evaluative criteria, single-member households qualify for food stamps at a monthly income of $1,265, which would include all minor-league players below the Double-A level. Households of three or more qualify for food stamps at a monthly income of $2,144 — almost exactly the minimum monthly income for Triple-A players.

(Broshuis said he has spoken with several players who have applied for food stamps but have been denied; one possible explanation is that an applicant's overall assets are assessed in determining eligibility.)

In addition, according to the complaint, players are not paid for spring training, fall instructional leagues or team-mandated offseason workout programs. They do receive per diem and travel reimbursement for those travel days.

In other words, according to the plaintiffs, though the player is paid for only five months of the season, his obligations to the team continue throughout the off-season. That leaves him between a rock and a hard place — not getting enough pay from the job he's under contract to do, but unable to take a full-time second job.

“You’re handed these big old workout packets to do extensive training,” Broshuis said. “A lot of guys are doing 20 hours a week of baseball-related stuff during the off-season.”

Broshuis' lead plaintiff, Aaron Senne, sold women’s shoes at Macy’s for two months after the 2011 season. One former PawSox pitcher, who is not involved in the lawsuit, stocked shelves at a Lowe’s hardware store from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. before pivoting to the workouts that the team required and that would help him advance his career.

The paychecks have to stretch. Once the minor-league season ends in September, minor-league players aren’t paid again until the regular season begins in April. By that time many players have to put down a month’s rent and a security deposit on an apartment near the home park.

“That’s just what really crushed a lot of guys,” Broshuis said.

In the response filed on behalf of Major League Baseball, the defendants “admit that minor league players may participate in organized baseball activities in the fall and pre-spring training mini-camp” but “deny knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the allegation concerning whether minor league players receive any compensation or benefits for these activities.”

Major leaguers

Major-league players are represented by a labor union that collectively bargains its working conditions with its employers — the Major League Baseball Players Association. Minor-league players are not.

Major-league players even are expressly protected by federal legislation — the Curt Flood Act of 1998 — while minor-league players are not.

For those reasons, once a player is added to a 40-man roster, the roster from which the 25-man major-league team is selected, his working conditions immediately begin to improve. He can seek redress for grievances through an arbitrator. He becomes subject to the negotiated drug-testing plan to which major-league players agreed rather than the drug-testing plan Major League Baseball unilaterally adopted for minor-leaguers.

Perhaps most important, his salary begins to climb.

Even players on the 40-man roster who are still in the minor leagues are due a minimum annual salary of $40,750 in their first year on the roster. That climbs to $81,500 in their second year on the 40-man roster. Upon reaching the major leagues, each player can expect at least the collectively bargained major-league minimum of just over $500,000 per year, even on a pro-rated basis.

A player can earn more in a single day in the major leagues — $2,819.44 — than he can in a month as a non-roster player at the Triple-A level. That does not include a per diem for road games ($99 per day) higher than what any non-roster minor-league player earns each day.

Officials with Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball have described minor-league baseball as a training ground, something of an internship for players on their way to the major leagues. But minor-leaguers face long odds of reaching the major leagues at all, let alone establishing themselves long enough to achieve the earnings common within the industry.

Of the 1,297 players who donned a uniform for one of the 30 Single-A minor-league teams in 2004, for example, 244 reached the major leagues — 18.8 percent. Of those who did reach the major leagues, only a handful — All-Stars like Carlos Gonzalez, Adam Jones or Joey Votto among the most notable examples — achieved the life-changing riches generally associated with professional baseball players. Many of those who did reach the major leagues lasted only a short time and faded right back into obscurity.

bmacpherson@providencejournal.com

On Twitter: @brianmacp

(401) 277-7340

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